By Will Brantley, Joe Cermele, Kirk Deeter, Mark Hicks, and Don Wirth

We reached out to 15 of the country’s top guides and pros—you know, the guys who get paid to reel in largemouths, smallmouths, trout, crappie, cats, walleyes, striped bass, and more—and asked them about what they rely on most to catch big fish come summer. Here are their answers. You’d better clear room in your tackle box. [ Read Full Post ]

Avian-X Strutter Decoy

$120; avian-x.com.  Outside of taxidermy decoys, Avian-X LCD inflatable turkey decoys are as realistic as it gets—just what you need when trying to fool late-season longbeards wary of rubber-chicken lookalikes. This new strutter works with a real fan, weighs 4.8 pounds, and comes with a carrying bag for run-and-gun hunting. It’s 15 percent smaller than your average real tom, too, making it less intimidating to subordinate birds. Hey, some of us like to shoot jakes. —Will Brantley

Cortland FlyPad

$80; cortlandline.com.  If your garage looks anything like mine, you need an easy way to organize all your dries, nymphs, and streamers. The FlyPad is a modular fly-storage system that holds eight trays of flies. A waterproof, low-profile fly box is strapped into a recess on the side. When you’re ready to fish, grab the tray you need, snap it into the box, and you’re ready to go. The ventilated FlyPad allows wet flies to air dry, and you can purchase extra fly boxes or trays configured to hold all different kinds of flies. —Joe Cermele

Diamond Archery Infinite Edge Package 

$399; diamondarchery.com. This new compound takes the recent trend of increased adjustability to a... [ Read Full Post ]

By Kirk Deeter

Now that Tim Romano has given away a pair of the new Cabela's Guidewear BOA Wading Boots, I'm going to tell you how they work.

They're great. If you like the Boa lacing system.

BOA laces are wire, and they can be wound on a circular dial knob. Crank the dial and the laces come tight. Pull the knob out and the system loosens up, and you slide your feet right out. The lingo from everyone who markets boots with BOA laces is that the easy-on, easy-off advantages are especially valuable when it's muddy, or icy, and so forth. But let's be really honest. Boa laces work really great for people who have a spare tire around their middle, and don't like squishing themselves when they tie their laces. (I have a friend who told me this.)

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By Nate Matthews

Fishing with a paddle saves you time and gas, but which method best fists your style and home water? We break down the pros and cons for four types, from electric kayaks to simple paddle boards.

Sit-On-Top Kayaks: Your Floating Tackle Box

While some traditional sit-in kayaks are still made for fishermen who venture into rough and cold water (such as the Wilderness Systems Pungo, $829), sit-on-tops far outnumber them today. Sit-on-top yaks let you change positions easily to rest sore parts. They’re also easier to get into and out of, are more stable, and are more customizable than most sit-in kayaks. All you need is a drill, a rivet gun and a tube of silicon to attach lights, anchor trolleys, extra rod holders, pontoon stabilizers, and a million other gadgets that let you tailor your boat to the places you fish.

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By Phil Bourjaily

Of all the many things we can buy covered in camo that shouldn’t be camo-ed, flashlights rank near the top of the list, along with knives. Several years ago a big game guide showed me his knife. He had dipped the handle in some kind of rubberized bright orange paint. It was easy to hold onto, he said, and easy to find when he set it down somewhere.

Which brings us to the TerraLux Lightstar 80. I used one last season and found it to be in most ways a basic, serviceable light. It’s a fairly inexpensive ($30 list, sells for less) 80 lumen LED light that runs for five hours on a pair of AA batteries. It has a rubber ring around the end so you can hold it in your mouth comfortably, and the on-off switch can even be operated with tongue pressure.

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Touted as a jerkbait, this tadpole-shaped lure has an adjustable lip that clicks into three positions, allowing it to work deep, shallow, and across the surface. The idea is that you get three lure styles in one.

Uncle Wesley’s is a newcomer to the lure world, and given that I’m a fan of small lure makers, I truly wanted Uncle Wesley’s Minnow to knock my socks off. Unfortunately, the designers need to get back to the drawing board. “It definitely sounds like a good idea that would save time tying on new lures, but I just couldn’t get any swimming action from it. I don’t see it being effective at all,” Marc Mitrany told me.

Rating: 1 star
MSRP: $10
Number of bass caught during testing: 0
Other species caught during testing: None

CLICK HERE FOR OUR FULL BASS LURE TEST

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